


Bridge of Sighs

by Luthien



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-11
Updated: 2007-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-14 18:44:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John always prefers action to talking about... stuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bridge of Sighs

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sunday of sighs

"Gently, gently!" Rodney warns, for the third time in less than a minute.

John glares at him. "Do you want to get up here and do this?"

"No, I'm perfectly comfortable right here." Rodney slouches back heavily in his seat, and the boat the _punt_ \- wobbles dangerously for a moment, and so does John, standing on the platform at the stern, pole in hand.

"McKay!" John growls, tightening his grip on the pole, just as Rodney cries:

"How many times do I have to tell you? Don't push the pole down too hard or it'll get stuck in the mud, and then you'll have to make a choice between losing it or losing the punt." He turns around in his seat and glares accusingly at John. "Do you know how many inexperienced punters have been left in the middle of the river over the years, clinging to the pole for an endless second before they fall in? Not to mention the puntee who's left floating down the river by himself in a punt without anything to steer it."

John rolls his eyes and decides against asking - for now - whether Rodney would ever have happened to be one of those inexperienced punters back in his student days. "It's not stuck, McKay." He pulls the pole right up out of the water to prove it.

"Don't do that! You're dripping it all over me! Keep the bottom of the pole in the water at all times. And no sudden, jerky movements. Just nice and slow and-"

"Relax, I think I can work out how to move this thing for myself. I even read through the instructions the hire place gave us." John lets the pole slide back down into the water, letting gravity do the work just as the instructions described.

"Work out? You _said_ you'd done this before."

"I have. I've rowed boats before."

"Really. You've rowed while standing u-"

"Oh, hey!" John says. They've rounded a bend in the river and there's a bridge up ahead. It's a foot bridge, wooden and sort of rickety, and not nearly as ornate or imposing as most of the other structures they've seen around the grounds of the major colleges since they arrived in Cambridge this morning. Now it's late afternoon, and pale fingers of sunlight shine through the gaps in the bridge, silvering the water in a ghostly reflection.

"It's the Mathematical Bridge connecting Queens' College," Rodney says. "And before you ask, no, there's nothing particularly mathematical about it. Well, no more than any other decently constructed bridge in existence. Also, just in case you've actually read any of the extremely imaginative brochures they left in the room, no, it isn't held together without any nails or bolts or screws at all, and it wasn't designed by Isaac Newton."

"Of course it wasn't," John says, and he's really not trying to be sarcastic, but Rodney turns around to give him another look. "Newton died in the 1720s. This thing doesn't look like it's nearly three-hundred years old."

Rodney stares at him. "How do you know when Newton died?"

John shrugs, careful not to upset the steady rhythm he's finally got going with the pole. "It's a well-known fact."

"Since when do you-"

"Whoa!" Another punt comes out of nowhere and it's all John can do to keep his footing while he stops his pole from tangling with the other guy's.

"Sorry!" a young male voice calls out cheerily as the other punt zooms - relatively speaking - past them.

"River hog!" Rodney yells, which only provokes a storm of laughter from the occupants of the other punt. He turns around to John again, looking relieved to find that he's still there. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"You're sure you're not-"

"Just sit back and let me do the driving, Rodney," John says quietly, but he's using his command voice and for once it has the desired effect. Rodney stays quiet as the pole slides back down into the depths and hits the bottom with a gentle thunk.

There aren't any other punts on this stretch of the river right now - a statistical improbability, according to Rodney - and without any more distractions of the potentially-falling-in-the-water kind John finally gets the punt moving steady and smooth, just the way it's supposed to, and they soon fall into a longer silence.

It's almost hypnotic, the steady rhythm of the pole in his hands accompanied by the soft whooshing sound of the punt gliding along the water. John takes a vague note of the sorts of things they're moving past, stuff that Teyla will probably want to hear about when they get home: majestic buildings set back behind manicured green lawns, smaller buildings right on the river, and huge and ancient weeping willows with branches hanging down almost into the water. Mainly, though his eyes are taking in what's in front of him: the punt and the water streaming out on either side of them and, right in the middle of everything, the familiar, solid line of Rodney's back, his shirt damp from stray river water, the material clinging close enough to define every muscle as he leans forward in his seat.

There's brief excitement when they surprise a family of ducks out for an excursion on the water. As soon as she spots the punt, the mother duck races off with a sharp quack of command, and half a dozen ducklings obediently race away too, forming a fuzzy brown and yellow line streaking behind her.

They pass under several more bridges, with Rodney providing a detailed description of the design and history of each as they go.

John doesn't say much at all until they get close to the final bridge. An elegant covered bridge constructed out of some sort of pale stone. The one he's been waiting for.

He brings the punt to a standstill. He still doesn't say anything. He just waits.

He doesn't have to wait very long.

"This is the Bridge of- What do you think you're doing?! I told you not to push the pole down into the- Sheppard? Sheppard! _John_!"

"Relax, Rodney. I told you: I know what I'm doing."

John carefully manoeuvres the punt this way and that, to the soundtrack of Rodney's continued protests and demands to know just what John thinks he's doing now, until they're right under the centre of the bridge. Then he lays the pole to one side, clambers down off the platform and sits down on the seat right beside Rodney, so close that he can feel Rodney's hip hard against his own.

"Have you taken leave of your _mmph_!"

Rodney stiffens in surprise as John grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him close, as John's mouth captures his and kisses him, hard and with intent, right there in broad daylight in the middle of the river. John just hangs on and waits, kissing Rodney even more firmly, tongue stroking insistently against Rodney's closed lips, while he counts in his head: one and two and three and- Rodney melts against him, there's no other word for it, suddenly pliant, just like that, arms going up around John's shoulders, fingers skimming along the sides of John's face and sliding up into his hair, and mouth soft and wet and kissing John back like Rodney's afraid it might go out of style any moment. It's something that's never going to stop surprising John no matter how often it happens, the way Rodney just lets John have it all like this, open and giving like he never is when he has the option of words to arm himself with. And John... John has his own issues with words.

That's why John's brought them here right now, as the sun sets in the distance and the light starts to fade.

The silence is broken by loud applause and more than a few wolf whistles. They break apart to find three more punts close by. John scrambles for the pole but the other punters wave him off, already steering their punts to either side.

"River hog!" one of the passengers yells cheerily, and gives them a thumbs up as they go by.

John waves goodbye as Rodney sits back in his seat with a long sigh.

"You realise we're not in Venice," Rodney says at last.

"Yes, Rodney, we're in Cambridge," John says patiently.

"So you realise this is the wrong Bridge of Sighs."

"Seems fine to me," John looks up admiringly at the graceful arch of the bridge above their heads.

"But you realise that the whole tradition of kissing in a gondola beneath the Bridge of Sighs at sunset doesn't apply here."

"We're in a punt," John points out. He's more than a little relieved that Rodney hasn't mentioned the point of the tradition.

"Yes, that would be why I was advising you on appropriate punting technique earlier," Rodney says, starting to sound irritable now. "But that's beside the point." He pauses. "Keeping in mind that this is the wrong Bridge of Sighs, and that we're not even in Italy, and that we're in a punt and..." He pauses. Swallows. Then: "Did you mean it?"

Several very long, very slow seconds pass. Rodney sighs into the silence, a long, sad _resigned_ sigh, one that says he knows John and his troubled relationship with words way too well, or thinks he does.

John closes his eyes. He thought it would be easy, or at least possible, if he had some sort of script to follow, some sort of part to play, but now that the moment's arrived it's just as hard as anything he's ever - never - said before.

"Yeah. Yeah, I meant it - _mean_ it," he says quietly.

Rodney blinks once. Twice. And then he smiles. "I... mean it, too."

As heartfelt declarations go, it's a bit on the laconic side, but John's good with that. Besides, they've got the kissing part down pat. They try doing that some more.

He pulls back after a while and looks across at Rodney. Rodney's looking back at him, a broad smile with more than a touch of smugness to it lighting up his face, and blue eyes bright with something John's still not quite ready to name out loud.

This is it, John thinks. This is the first moment of the rest of his life, a life that from now on is going to involve the sort of closeness and sharing that he'd sworn off long ago.

It's a surprisingly calming thought.

The punt has been drifting a little and it chooses this moment to knock against the side of the Bridge of Sighs. John takes that as his cue and grabs the pole to push them back from the edge. He pushes a little too hard and the punt shoots across the water, leaving them in the middle of the river.

"Oh, God," Rodney protests as he grabs the side of the punt with one hand and clings. "Don't you have even the most rudimentary idea about the laws of motion? 'For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction' isn't ringing any bells, I take it? Your knowledge of Newton appears distinctly limited."

John grins, and decides that even if he ends up sharing damn near everything he owns and every innermost thought that he can manage to put into words, he's never, ever telling Rodney that he found out Newton's dates of birth and death from one of those brochures in the lobby back at the hotel.

He climbs back onto the platform at the back of the punt and lets the pole slide back into the water before slowly pushing off.

Or then again, maybe John will tell him. Sometime. Later. But definitely not while they're still in this punt.

**Author's Note:**

> Legend claims that lovers will be assured eternal love if they kiss at sunset under [the Bridge of Sighs in Venice](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_of_Sighs%20).


End file.
